


Red Gold and Green

by jerkbending



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 8th year AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 08:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12055110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerkbending/pseuds/jerkbending
Summary: 8th Year Christmas means Hogwarts, holidays, and...homework.





	Red Gold and Green

**Author's Note:**

> my first Drarry offering to the masses. unbeta'd silly little thing. with thanks to [ DracoMaleficium ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoMaleficium/works) for listening to me whine about it.

The only house rivalry any of them really had time or energy for was over the Christmas tree decorations. When it appeared in the 8th Year Common Room, it was wonderfully decked out in decorations of all four house colors. Since then, with the help of some of the more mischievous students, the balance among them changed daily. One morning when Harry had come down from the boy's dormitory, the blue and yellow ribbons had twisted around each other, leaving gaps where the fairy lights twinkled through. He wondered briefly if they had always been that way and he just hadn't noticed, but the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw girls curled up on one half of a sofa taking notes from an Arithmancy book reassured him that he wasn't completely oblivious. 

When he had come back up, after lunch, the sofa was vacant and there were an awful lot more blue lights and bronze ornaments than he remembered; even the elegant white star at the top looked rather brassy. The Common Room was empty, so Harry checked over his shoulder twice, changed all the biggest glass balls to Gryffindor red, and disappeared up the stairs to fetch his Transfiguration essay. It was due at two o'clock, and Hermione had said she'd proofread it if he came and found her in the Library.

December passed that way, and nearly everyone participated at one time or another. Hermione had rolled her eyes and called it childish, but one day towards the middle of the month, it was noticed that _someone_ had bewitched the fairy lights to blink on and off in time with melody. Someone from Slytherin (Draco and Blaise were the only boys who had returned, so Harry suspected one of the girls) colored all of the ornaments silver and sealed them with some sort of protection charm one afternoon. Every attempt made to swap them to a different color resulted in a brightly-colored splotch on someone's hair or face; so the tree stayed mostly silver for a day or two until the charm weakened enough to break through. Luna's contribution was probably the only one not jokingly malicious and actually contributed to the image; she changed the star back from bronze to white and fixed it in the air above the tree, slowly rotating and sparkling. Ron thought the whole thing hilarious and bemoaned in letters that the one year that something interesting and _not_ life-threatening happened, he wasn't there. 

Draco, Harry was slightly bemused to find, didn't seem to care. Not enough to make his mark like everyone else had, anyway. He studied in the Common Room like the rest of them, didn't hide away in the dormitory like Harry had thought he might, but Harry hadn't seen him give the tree more than cursory glance since the elves had put it up. 

"Just odd," Harry said at breakfast through a bite of toast, "he's in NEWT Charms with us. Just thought he might, you know, want to show off."

"He may already have," Hermione was doing her level best at keeping the conversation though Harry knew she could not have cared less about whether or not Malfoy contributed to the decorations. 

"No," Harry shook his head, "I don't think so. I think we'd know." 

"He may have done the singing bit," she replied over one of the Daily Prophet's pages, "that would have been tricky."

"He may have," agreed Harry, "had it not been you."

"I don't know what you mean," she smirked, "I would never waste my time participating in something so childish."

"No, never," Harry grinned and downed the rest of his orange juice. "Padma was talking about removing that charm anyway so she can do something else, make them move around and spell things or something."

"She wouldn't dare!" Hermione crumpled the Prophet where she was holding it, "she knows what a trick it was to get the colors coordinated to pitch!" 

"Bet it took you all of fifteen minutes," Harry laughed.

Hermione made a small noise through her nose as she folded the newspaper back up, "twenty-three."

 

The peacock ornaments appeared a week before the December exams. 

Having left one of his Transfiguration texts in the Common Room earlier that evening, Harry was coming down the stairs to retrieve it when two things caught his eye at once: Draco Malfoy was in the Common Room, alone, and the Christmas tree was covered in small, bejeweled peacocks. They were beautiful. Made of delicate silver filigree with blue and green stones on the tail, they fit easily into the palm of the hand. They were roosting on every tier of the tree, preening and grooming, spreading their tails and strutting, judging his Chudley Cannons pajamas with the tiniest upturned beaks. 

"Wow," Harry whispered, to no one in particular, but it was very late and the fire was low and it just seemed polite not to make a lot of noise. He stepped up for a closer look, and one of them strutted out to the end of its branch and right into Harry's outstretched hand. "Did you do these?" he asked with a small smile, turning to face Malfoy where he was curled up in one of the big, squishy fireside chairs. 

Malfoy titled his head up from his essay just enough to be able to give Harry a raised eyebrow and a snort.

"They weren't here before," Harry stroked the longest tail feather of the ornament still perched in his palm, "when we were studying. You must've done them between then and now." 

"D'you really think I would waste my time on that kind of nonsense?" Malfoy asked the tip of his quill. Harry could see that he already had several feet written, he just looked to be editing, crossing bits out and circling some parts to elaborate in the margins. 

"I've been wondering what you were going to do," Harry lifted his hand back towards the tree and the ornament flew back to its branch, landing heavily on the end of it and causing the glass balls and icicles to bob and swing. "I didn't figure it was you who charmed the silver ornaments; it was clever but really too ordinary to-"

"Are you deaf, Potter?" Malfoy set his quill down on the table between the two chairs, "I said would I _really_ waste my time on-"

"No you didn't," Harry said matter-of-fact and sat down in the matching squishy chair, "you asked if _I_ really thought you'd waste your time on them. And yes, I do." 

Malfoy made a 'tch' noise and unrolled another foot of his essay in his lap. 

"I couldn't believe you wouldn't have _something_ to do," Harry cast his eyes around in the dim light to the spot where he and Hermione had been sitting with Neville before and spotted his text on the floor, nearly kicked under the sofa. "Can't let Hermione take all the glory with the singing lights."

"Granger did those?" Malfoy looked over at Harry, upper lip curling, "I could skin her. Blaise's been singing to those damned things since."

"I thought Blaise was good at singing," Harry stuck his sock feet out towards the glowing embers.

"Of course he is," Malfoy replied, "that's not the point. It never stops. 'S why I'm here _now_ going over this," he shook the parchment in his lap, "and I'll thank you to leave me to it."

"Why don't you do it in the Library at a _normal_ hour, like everyone else?" Harry asked with a smirk.

" _Potter_..." Malfoy sighed, "I don't have to answer to you. I'm behind on reviewing this and it's due to Slughorn tomorrow morning. If you _please_ , oh Golden Boy, I'd like to finish in time to get enough sleep to pass as human."

There was a retort on the tip of Harry's tongue, asking Draco if he was finally admitting to being a vampire, but he stopped himself before he could say it. Malfoy did look tired, even in the poor lighting, bags under his eyes and a bit of ink at his temple where he'd no doubt run his fingers through his hair. Harry uncrossed his legs and stood, "Right, sorry." He padded across the room to save his book from Under Sofa Oblivion and looked back over his shoulder at Malfoy's hunched figure. He'd picked his quill back up and was making edits on his essay again. 

"Good night, Malfoy," Harry said at the foot of the stairs. 

He'd gone a few steps before he heard Malfoy's faint reply, "Good...night. Potter."


End file.
